Board hears aging services report

A representative of Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington gave a report Monday morning to Whitman County Commissioners about services provided in 2018.

Lynn Kimball, executive director for Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington, said 1,091 Whitman County residents received services in 2018.

Those services include transportation, home delivered meals, family caregiver assessments and family caregiver in-home respite hours.

Caregiver respite hours were covered completely by federal funding, Kimball said. Respite hours are meant to relieve the regular caregiver from their duties for a few hours, or weeks.

According to the report, a total of $613,000 was funded for the services provided in Whitman County for 2018.

The report also said $1.8 million was authorized for case management goods and services.

Other provided services are dementia treatment training, senior legal services, a senior farmers market nutrition program and caregiver training.

"Counseling and Human Services is doing a wonderful job, and continues with one of the most well-attended meal sites in our service region," Kimball said.

She said case management in the department is stable and there was an increase of home-delivered meals this year.

The report showed that 7,526 meals were delivered, compared to 5,801 last year,

Some concerns of Whitman County residents are transportation and affordable housing, she said.

"We heard from older adults that felt a new housing development being built for students at a price level that seniors on fixed incomes cannot afford shows some of the continued need for development of affordable housing," she said.

According to the report, there were 4,444 one-way van trips for 305 people in 2018, but the year before there were 5,120 trips for 274 people.

County Commissioner Dean Kinzer commented that new legislation will make it harder to find affordable housing.

Kimball said their services do not provide affordable housing, but provide services to help find the housing.

She said a public hearing will soon be scheduled at the Pullman Senior Center to get feedback from the community.